Estimate of total abuse payments ‘is out by US$1bn’

A survey has found that the US Church spent about one billion dollars more in connection with the sex abuse crisis than the US$3 billion previously estimated, writes Michael Sean Winters.

The National Catholic Reporter  studied relevant databases and calculated that total documented payouts since 1950 stand at just under US$4bn (£2.6bn).

A separate study in the Journal of Public Economics showed that the sex abuse crisis cost the US Church more than $2.3bn in lost revenue per year from smaller donations in areas hit hardest by the sex abuse scandal. “A scandal causes a persistent decline in charitable giving of about 1.3 per cent in the affected zip code,” the study found, a loss of an “order of magnitude” higher than the US$3bn figure. Northeastern states from Wisconsin and Michigan across to Massachusetts and Rhode Island were particularly hard hit.